Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Vic's Website: vicdicara.com - You can get access to my astrology readings there, as well as my books and classes on astrology and Vedic philosophy.
Livestream Q/A on this Video: youtube.com/live/4Zxv58WQrkc
HOW TO CHANGE YOURSELF AND YOUR DESTINY
Actions → Experiences
Actions change the world around us. We turn on an air-conditioner and the room becomes cool. We lose our temper, and people start to dislike or distrust us. Everything we do generates some result that we experience.
Experiences → Saṁskāra
We experience things through our mind. Each and every experience leaves behind a footprint, an impression on the substance of the mind. Yoga-darśan calls these impressions saṁskāra.
Emotions → Desires
Emotions constantly flow through the mind like electricity or water. The two most fundamental emotions are love and hate. All other emotions are infinite variations on these two.
A flow of emotion in a particular direction is what we call a "desire." The two most fundamental desires are attraction and aversion.
Desires → Actions
When emotions of love flow towards something, the attraction to it impels us to take actions that will bring it closer to us, more fully, more often. When emotions of hate flow towards something, the aversion impels us to act in ways that will get us further from it in every way.
Saṁskāra → Emotions
Saṁskāra are the indentations, the impressions our experiences make on the landscape of our mind. So, they are what create our emotions, and therefore they are the foundation of all our actions, all our experiences, every condition we find ourselves in. They are the structure of fate.
Karma?
Sometimes we say that Karma is our fate. This isn't a contradiction. Karma is simply the term for the entire cycle.
In fact, if you ever wondered how karma is stored and how it takes effect, you just stumbled upon your answer: via saṁskāra. Saṁskāra literally are the stored form of our karma.
Also, if you ever wondered what astrological charts actually describe, you just found out. They describe the saṁskāra that are active during your lifetime. An astrological chart is a symbolic code to your saṁskāra.
How to Change It?
According to Yoga-darśan, the mind has five "operations" of "functions" - which interact with its impressions. Two functions are like caretakers of our saṁskāra. They are smṛti and nidra: Remembering and Forgetting.
Remembering keeps a mental impression crisp and deep.
Forgetting makes a mental impression fade and become shallow.
To change yourself and your circumstances, change your actions.
But changing our behavior and habits can be impossible, because actions are driven by desires. So to actually change our actions, we have to change our desires.
Again, changing desires is also impossible, because desires are created by emotions. So, to actually change our destiny, we need to change our emotions.
Changing our emotions seems at least as impossible as changing our desires. This is because emotions don't flow where we tell them, they flow wherever the saṁskāra are deepest.
This is where we must leverage the mind's two saṁskāra-tending functions: remembering and forgetting.
A Plan of Action!
Identify what you like about yourself, what you want more of in your life. Conversely, what you don't like, and want less of. Think about what actions have led to events in which you were happy with yourself and your circumstances. And conversely, which actions led to events that made you unhappy. Now think about which desires have led you into those actions.
And what sorts of emotions led to those desires.
Target on Lock
Now you know which emotions, desires, and actions you want to remember, and which you want to forget.
To remember, revisit the emotions, desires, actions, and experiences. Recall them. Envision them. Repeat them. Go back to the places where they happen. Be with the people you felt and did them with.
To forget, make an effort NOT to revisit the emotions, desires, actions and experiences connected with things you do not want to recur in your destiny. Don't go back to the places where you felt, did and experienced those things. Don't wear the same clothes, walk the same paths, use the same terms. Distance yourself from the people involved.
Gaining command of one's own mind not only let's us experience normal happiness much more fully, it also opens the door towards supernatural and genuinely spiritual perception, experience, and happiness.
00:00 Intro
00:28 Actions → Experiences → Saṁskāra
01:16 Saṁskāra → Mental Landscape
01:47 Emotions
03:05 Desires
03:33 Actions
04:18 Karmic Cycle
04:58 Karmic Blueprint
06:25 Astrology, Karma, Saṁskāra
07:57 Reverse Engineering Destiny
08:52 Remembering & Forgetting
09:51 How to Change Destiny
12:21 3-Step Action Plan
15:19 How to Remember & Forget
17:48 Patience in the Beginning
19:47 Q/A Info
Vic's Website: vicdicara.com - You can get access to my astrology readings there, as well as my books and classes on astrology and Vedic philosophy.
Livestream Q/A on this Video: youtube.com/live/4Zxv58WQrkc
HOW TO CHANGE YOURSELF AND YOUR DESTINY
Actions → Experiences
Actions change the world around us. We turn on an air-conditioner and the room becomes cool. We lose our temper, and people start to dislike or distrust us. Everything we do generates some result that we experience.
Experiences → Saṁskāra
We experience things through our mind. Each and every experience leaves behind a footprint, an impression on the substance of the mind. Yoga-darśan calls these impressions saṁskāra.
Emotions → Desires
Emotions constantly flow through the mind like electricity or water. The two most fundamental emotions are love and hate. All other emotions are infinite variations on these two.
A flow of emotion in a particular direction is what we call a "desire." The two most fundamental desires are attraction and aversion.
Desires → Actions
When emotions of love flow towards something, the attraction to it impels us to take actions that will bring it closer to us, more fully, more often. When emotions of hate flow towards something, the aversion impels us to act in ways that will get us further from it in every way.
Saṁskāra → Emotions
Saṁskāra are the indentations, the impressions our experiences make on the landscape of our mind. So, they are what create our emotions, and therefore they are the foundation of all our actions, all our experiences, every condition we find ourselves in. They are the structure of fate.
Karma?
Sometimes we say that Karma is our fate. This isn't a contradiction. Karma is simply the term for the entire cycle.
In fact, if you ever wondered how karma is stored and how it takes effect, you just stumbled upon your answer: via saṁskāra. Saṁskāra literally are the stored form of our karma.
Also, if you ever wondered what astrological charts actually describe, you just found out. They describe the saṁskāra that are active during your lifetime. An astrological chart is a symbolic code to your saṁskāra.
How to Change It?
According to Yoga-darśan, the mind has five "operations" of "functions" - which interact with its impressions. Two functions are like caretakers of our saṁskāra. They are smṛti and nidra: Remembering and Forgetting.
Remembering keeps a mental impression crisp and deep.
Forgetting makes a mental impression fade and become shallow.
To change yourself and your circumstances, change your actions.
But changing our behavior and habits can be impossible, because actions are driven by desires. So to actually change our actions, we have to change our desires.
Again, changing desires is also impossible, because desires are created by emotions. So, to actually change our destiny, we need to change our emotions.
Changing our emotions seems at least as impossible as changing our desires. This is because emotions don't flow where we tell them, they flow wherever the saṁskāra are deepest.
This is where we must leverage the mind's two saṁskāra-tending functions: remembering and forgetting.
A Plan of Action!
Identify what you like about yourself, what you want more of in your life. Conversely, what you don't like, and want less of. Think about what actions have led to events in which you were happy with yourself and your circumstances. And conversely, which actions led to events that made you unhappy. Now think about which desires have led you into those actions.
And what sorts of emotions led to those desires.
Target on Lock
Now you know which emotions, desires, and actions you want to remember, and which you want to forget.
To remember, revisit the emotions, desires, actions, and experiences. Recall them. Envision them. Repeat them. Go back to the places where they happen. Be with the people you felt and did them with.
To forget, make an effort NOT to revisit the emotions, desires, actions and experiences connected with things you do not want to recur in your destiny. Don't go back to the places where you felt, did and experienced those things. Don't wear the same clothes, walk the same paths, use the same terms. Distance yourself from the people involved.
Gaining command of one's own mind not only let's us experience normal happiness much more fully, it also opens the door towards supernatural and genuinely spiritual perception, experience, and happiness.
00:00 Intro
00:28 Actions → Experiences → Saṁskāra
01:16 Saṁskāra → Mental Landscape
01:47 Emotions
03:05 Desires
03:33 Actions
04:18 Karmic Cycle
04:58 Karmic Blueprint
06:25 Astrology, Karma, Saṁskāra
07:57 Reverse Engineering Destiny
08:52 Remembering & Forgetting
09:51 How to Change Destiny
12:21 3-Step Action Plan
15:19 How to Remember & Forget
17:48 Patience in the Beginning
19:47 Q/A Info
